In 1992, the sci-fi writer Bruce Sterling published The Hacker Crackdown, a riveting nonfiction book about a string of high-profile hacker busts on the early "electronic frontier" of the late '80s and early '90s. The first hacker crackdown shook the early internet to its core and helped mobilize political geeks. Today, we're in the midst of a new crackdown. And with the death this weekend of the legally and emotionally troubled 26-year-old computer genius Aaron Swartz, this one has a body count.

24-year-old Aaron Swartz, one of the first employees of internet-addled nerds' favorite message board, Reddit, was indicted last week on charges that he stole over four million articles from the online academic journal archive JSTOR. He faces up to 35 years in prison and a $1 million fine.